A Formal to Remember (If You Actually Made It)

The pressure was heightened for Sea King ladies this past month as ASB declared our winter formal as “Sadie’s,” meaning the girls had to ask their favorite guy to be their date, as opposed to the other way around.

“I was so nervous. I mean we usually plan it out before actually asking, but that doesn’t erase the nerves you get when you actually have to pop the question,” senior Haley Bledsoe said.

But despite the increased unease over proposals, the girls pulled out all the stops including an asking at halftime of our PV versus Peninsula basketball game and another during an episode of Live From 205.

This year’s theme, PV Festival Formal, was an all-time favorite among Sea Kings, as the majority of the student body attends music festivals throughout the year.

ASB decorated campus pods specifically for four festivals including Snowglobe, Stagecoach, Coachella, and Outside Lands.

There was also a spirit week tied to the theme which included dress-up days such as Mo Bamba Monday and Western Wednesday. The student body was in the festival spirit way before the day of the dance.

“ASB worked for weeks to make sure that formal week went off without a hitch, and I think we definitely accomplished that,” sophomore Michael Mitsanas said.

On the day of the dance, most Sea Kings and their parents lined the famous Palos Verdes cliffs for a traditional photo-op, and then met up with their friends to board party buses.

If formal busses had been smooth-running, pushing through the crowd on the hill and taking pictures without the background of a blurry group of students and their parents would have been the students’ greatest worry of the night

However, for two groups of our upperclassmen – 190 students in total – the latter never occurred.

“We spent three hours at my house just hanging out and making the best of the situation while we waited for the bus, but it never came,” senior Hadley Richards said.

“We were sent a charter bus that fit only 55 people, so we didn’t end up taking it to the dance but spent about 20 minutes riding it to another house. As ASB president, I literally planned this dance, but never got to actually experience it.”

While most seniors who missed the dance tried to make the best of the situation, many were disappointed that they never made it to their last formal.

“It’s just that it’s my senior year and this is the last formal I’ll ever have, so I’m just upset that I didn’t get to spend it riding a bus with my friends and then dancing the night away at the venue,” senior Caroline Decker said.

So no matter if students made it to the dance or not, PV’s Festival Formal was most definitely a night to remember for all Sea Kings who glammed up.